Overriding charge on income excludes maintenance payments from taxable income when amounts are diverted before receipt.

Amounts diverted from an assessee's resources by an overriding charge before they reach him do not constitute taxable income. Here, the maintenance payment charged by decree was treated as diverted at source rather than a voluntary application of income after accrual, so the sum never formed part of what the appellant received as income under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922. The broader exemption provisions did not alter that conclusion. The maintenance amount was therefore excluded from taxable income.

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Issues: Whether the maintenance payment charged upon the appellant's resources was income of the appellant chargeable to tax, or whether it was diverted before receipt and therefore outside his taxable income.

Analysis: The payment to the stepmother was not a voluntary application of income after it had accrued to the appellant. By reason of the decree, a specific part of the appellant's resources was charged for the maintenance payment, so that that amount was diverted at source and never formed part of what he received as income. The statutory charge under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 extended only to what reached the assessee as income. The case therefore fell outside the notion of taxable income, and the broader exemption provisions did not alter that conclusion.

Conclusion: The maintenance payment was not income of the appellant within the statutory meaning and could not be included in his taxable income.

Final Conclusion: The assessment had to be amended by excluding the maintenance sum from the appellant's taxable income, with the appeal succeeding to that extent.

Ratio Decidendi: Amounts diverted from an assessee's resources by an overriding charge before they reach him do not constitute his income for the purpose of income tax.

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